Facebook Crisis? Ad Sales Have Skyrocketed

Ever since the Cambridge Analytica crisis came to the public attention back in March, Facebook has been discussed extensively in publications all around the world. There’s been shock and outrage over the breach of user privacy and many might have thought it a disaster for the future of Facebook. However, this hasn’t been the case. But first..

The extent of the trouble

In total, it is estimated that around 90 million Facebook users had their private data hacked and improperly used. Off the back of this blatant violation of privacy laws, thousands upon thousands of people decided to delete their Facebook accounts as a result. The #DeleteFacebook movement picked up considerable support, however, it appears it hasn’t done enough to stop support for the social media giant.

Surprising first-quarter results

In total, Facebook announced first quarterly earnings of £8.5 billion. This is up 50% on the 1st quarter of 2017 and allowed the company to net roughly £2.6 billion in profit. That’s up more than 60% since 2017! Even more surprising is that the Facebook user count is also up. Global daily user count for the first quarter of 2018 is 1.45 billion which represents a 13% increase on last year.

The future for Facebook

Across the EU, better data control has been a highly discussed topic, as new GDPR legislation has been a key talking point for more than a year now. Well, in line with this new regulation and the humiliation of the disaster, Facebook has already implemented a number of steps to help better store user data.

They have also taken other preemptive steps such as cancelling their partner categories programme, which allows them to gain advanced advertising data from large third-party data aggregators. You’d think that taking this step would cause a large decrease in ad revenue as it gives advertisers access to a far less comprehensive pool of user information.

However, it is hard to say what the next few months will bring. Many of the new changes and policies are only just being put in place and will take a couple of months to filter through. Some might argue that the second quarter of 2018 will be a far more accurate representation of how the Cambridge Analytica disaster has affected Facebook’s profitability. However, the juggernaut social media site shows no signs of slowing down just yet.

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